My Poetry

2010-11-25T13:39:00.001-06:00

A MOMENT OF SILENCE


Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me in a moment of silence inhonor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last September 11th.

I would also like to ask you to offer up a moment of silence for all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes, for the victims in both Afghanistan and the U.S.

And if I could just add one more thing...

A full day of silence for the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at  the hands of U.S.-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation. Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children, who have died ofmalnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year U.S. embargo against the country.

Before I begin this poem, two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa, where homeland security made them aliens in their own country Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where death rained down and peeled back every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skin and the survivors went on as if alive. A year of silence for the millions of dead in Viet Nam - a people, not a war - for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel,their relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it. A year of silence

for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of a secret war ... ssssshhhhh .... Saynothing ... we don't want them to learn that they are dead. Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia, whose names, like the corpses they once

represented, have piled up and slipped off our tongues.

Before I begin this poem,

An hour of silence for El Salvador ... An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...

Two days of silence for the Guetmaltecos ... None of whom ever knew a moment of   peace in their living years. 45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal,

Chiapas 25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the sky. There will beno DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains. And for those who werestrung and swung from the heights of sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west... 100 years of silence...

For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half of right here, Whose land and lives were stolen, In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears. Names now reducedto innocuous magnetic poetry on the refrigerator of our consciousness ...

So you want a moment of silence?

And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust

Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence

You mourn now as if the world will never be the same And the rest of us hope
to hell it won't be. Not like it always has been

Because this is not a 9-1-1 poem
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.

This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written And if this is
a 9/11 poem, then

This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977
This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York,
1971.
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes
This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told
The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks
The 110 stories that that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored
This is a poem for interrupting this program.

And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:

The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children Before I start this poem we
could be silent forever Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us

And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.

If you want a moment of silence

Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit

If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window of Taco Bell,
And pay the workers for wages lost

Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses and the
Playboys. If you want a moment of silence,

Then take it

On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful people
have gathered You want a moment of silence

Then take it
Now,

Before this poem begins.

Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand In the space between
bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence

Take it.

But take it all
Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime. But we,

Tonight we will keep right on singing
For our dead.

- Emmanuel Ortiz 9.11.02

2009-12-27T10:46:00.002-06:00

I must conquer my loneliness

alone.
I must be happy with myself
or I have
nothing
to offer.
two halves have
little choice
but to
join;
and, yes,
they do
make a
whole,
but two
wholes
when they coincide…
that is
beauty,
that is
love.
from Peter McWilliams' book of poetry ''Surviving the Loss of a Love''

2009-04-09T18:16:00.002-05:00

fade

on the window ledge, the daffodils open in their mason jar of water
a dried bud keeps the smallest incomplete
its uneven yellow face turns to me, away from the sunlight.
do I love because I know one day I will leave?
in the garden
the crocus have begun to wilt,
except for the patch that hid themselves beneath the large stone.
in their solitude, they do not know the time to fade.

2008-06-17T16:59:00.001-05:00

ecstasy

I would let go
but for the colour.
still,

I like to sneak to the edge
and dig my fingernails into stone
and ponder
the relief of falling
the ecstasy in shattering bones, the
liberation of seeping blood. but

when I crawl back
it is for the shade
of your tears.

2008-06-17T16:55:00.005-05:00

budding

a ciphered breeze radiates
chilled fingers to
flicker over my skin and
keep sleep a dream.under the old quilt I imagine
you, I
crawl inside your likeness
and rebut today's rain,
the maple's goosebumped branches,
my pale hands.
reject robins ravening of
drunken worms, to

deny me, to
construct another.

2008-06-17T16:51:00.001-05:00

a poet's epilogue

will it matter that I knew you?

that I notice light spinning
off maple keys

thrown from their canopy

to die under bicycle tires

pushed by gangly boys?

will I place my heart more carefully

after I watch leaves painting

small strokes of sunlight

freed from purple skies

and indolent raindrops?

did the words have meaning

when the waves wiped sand

from my feet

and left smooth stones

for my fingers?

and in the end
will I matter?

2007-06-08T14:43:00.001-05:00

Dear Poetry

I will break again.
outside locked doors
inside the rain;

I am not enough
to stand,
to touch the shattered drop.

I cannot awake.
Morpheus bound me
in his embrace.

I do break.
shards of glass bled
colourless by rain.

I am not enough
to eat my pain,
chew brittle glass
kiss her anger.

I do not get away.

I will die again;
be reborn in blackness
of my darkest cave.

I may awake
alone, in Gaia’s womb
entombed, unknown.

I will not flay my
flesh in words;
fall through myself
to make amends

again.

2007-06-08T14:30:00.001-05:00

unforgiven

who do I imagine I am?

breath?

thought?

in a place

where ten year old

bulldozers tear down

one hundred year old trees

in this place where

house sized wood chippers

vomit green onto

clear cut ground

bare foot in the grass

the rain will not

baptize me

my finger waits

for the drop that

could forgive me.

2007-06-08T13:24:00.000-05:00

concupiscence

The lavender garden is sharp dry sticks. The half withered lilac bush hangs on like a stroke victim, small white flowers facing away from its dead side. In front, an entire clump of golden ground cover, eaten alive. The herbivores moving on to tasty nettle flowers and deep blue hostas.

The thistles are thriving. Feeding birds all winter, has afforded me this reward.

I sit under my willow’s weeping, and look to its stunted branches for emotions appropriate for the dead and dying. Are they waiting under heavy clay soil to emerge with cicadas? Will I recall my love in the arrival of their ravenous droning?

Perhaps.

All are dead, or will die from my neglect. If you want to be poetic, will die from my breakdown, my second bottom, my passions' burial, from life and hope too afraid to wake up.

But my today is not for poetry.

Today I stand in thistles. Last summer, I brushed past lavender for the perfumed caress it left on me. I regard the desiccated bed before my re-immersion in barren slumber.

2007-06-07T00:51:00.001-05:00

Moment of Silence

2007-06-05T19:04:00.001-05:00

Well it's happened - I'm published.... go figure.

2007-05-18T09:18:00.001-05:00

starved rock

I am drifting mist
shrouding sacred souls
condensing cool on
rounded rocks, a
blanket for embracing moss

hazy fingers who in grasping
for the twisted trees
plummet instead to churning waters
merging my sorrows' songs
with loons’ soft and haunting melodies

I am the dying shattered tree
my red heart
laid open, my decay -
now marrow for our mother earth

the musky redolence in damp
disintegrating leaves, my grave -
a witness forever to
the silhouettes of passing lives

I am footfalls barely
heard between
heartbeats - felt
scarcely behind you on the
leaf strewn path

dancing in the mist of a
waterfall who carved
my stone face
within each teardrop

I am all of these

I am the questions
you dare not ask

your face - that you do not see

I am your dead
I am forever.

Dedicated to: The Illinois.

Seeking revenge for a tribal murder the Potawatomi paddled down river to attack the Illinois. The Illinois sought refuge on top of a high rock. They climbed up to the summit of the rock hoping that the Potawatomi would by-pass them on their way southward. Unfortunately, the plan backfired and the Potawatomi surrounded the base. As the Illinois tried to get water by lowering buckets with rope the Potawatomi would cut the ropes or shatter the buckets with their arrows. They also climbed up on top of Devil's Nose and showered them with arrows. As the Illinois grew more desperate, some tried sneaking down, but they were murdered. The rest that were left on top, starved. Since then, the rock has been known as "Starved Rock."

2007-05-18T09:15:00.000-05:00

universally speaking

I am nothing

more than words;

(composed in marrow)

meaningless
shapes on
dry pages

every thought
is a prayer

for heaven?
for hell?
I don't know.

engulfed in
unutterable answers

I make love
to darkness

2007-05-18T09:13:00.001-05:00

are you more precious
because of your
dying?

- picking, eating, dead flesh
with your iced fingers -

or still precious in spite of it?

do hearts explode
with grief,
or do they hide,
again?

again. and again. and, again.

a man will bury himself
alive,
(I've watched. holding his shovel)
(again)

do you notice
mother earth's dark womb
engulfing you again?

I hate these words.

I hate my words.
again.

I hate.
I hate loving you
again.

2007-04-14T20:58:00.001-05:00

I
3am

there is someone
in here
dying

it's 3am, and I
need to hear
sunlight

you, obviously
hours wealthier,
step off into
your life

the blackness between
your words
will not hold time

curled
within it - I
listen for breathing.

II
continuum

inside

I waited for rules
to change

-time is dripping somewhere in a cave-

(Do Not drink the
black drops)

love?
you were in love with it

(it tasted of quinine
dipped in too much sugar)

III
space

a heart holds
enough blood to
flow
evenly across
a kitchen table

before turning
black

(you never wrote this down)

in the space beside speech
you can
hold smooth
cold stones

collected, I
wear them in a sac
around my neck

they weigh the same as time.

IV
patterns of engagement

number one
embrace bleeding

learn to love
sticky sweetness

this is how snow
feels to a daffodil
french kissing
cold with hot

fuck this.

blood in snow feels
beautiful

the velvet of black
roses
is absolutely edible.

V
infinity

metaphorically speaking

my murder will
be misunderstood

it will be enough to say
it's hour
was infinite

like the taste of
chocolate
kissed from your tongue
in solitude.

2007-03-18T21:06:00.000-05:00

From Ear to Quaternity
(a Ruthless and Toothless Production)

by Leanne Handson
(fabulous poet - and not just because she wrote this)
author of "Odd Verse Effects"

Bow down before the Amazing Callooh
Mistress of misery, goddess of gore
Lady of leg humping fantasies blue
Driving us mad with foot flat on the floor

If you’re disturbed (perhaps sick to the core)
Bow down before the Amazing Callooh
Read and prepare to be struck down with awe
(Some say it feels like a dose of the flu)

If you’ve a parrot to spare (maybe two)
Drop by the Bulldog for cheeses galore
Bow down before the Amazing Callooh
Pay your respects to the nut we adore

Nearly the end now, there’s just one verse more
Then you can go back to peanuts and brew
Make sure you’ve done what I got you here for:
Bow down before the Amazing Callooh

Never, get too friendly with a poet....

2007-02-25T18:23:00.000-06:00

not to touch

I read Neruda with you
in a dream that was
worthy of your untamed mouth,
your heavy eyes, they
hold the deep night's velvet
your roughened hands, impossible
not to touch

I woke with you
my eyelids
draped by May’s first dew, then
opened to cold solitude
an emptiness caressed
by dawn’s orange fingers
your touch fleeing on chaste butterfly wings

my love, a transparent child,
cries soft round tears
that float up and leave my
tender kisses in the
pure whiteness of clouds.

2007-02-24T23:54:00.000-06:00

confession

and when first I loved

you, I was my other self,

whose surface love gripped, and
clung in fear

with dreadful fingernails.

when first I tried

new love.

layers have peeled;

of love, of scorn,

and fresher passions,
flayed from

fragile skin.

nerves lay alive on

frail new membranes, alert to

desire’s precise pain.

trembling, I stand alone
becoming stronger;
virgin flesh
still unprotected.

my hidden love,
my fierce passion
for you, bound loosely
deep within myself.
I swallow back and
gag on my bile stained
remorseful confessions.

you are

my unremitting bedrock

worth capricious joy;

essential still,

for each heart beat,

and my every
single breath.

2007-02-20T17:43:00.000-06:00

the strongest of the strange

you wont see them often
for wherever the crowds are
they
are not.

these odd ones, not
many
but from them
come
the few
good paintings
the few
good symphonies
the few

good books

and other
works.

and from the
best of the
strange ones
perhaps
nothing.

they are
their own
paintings
their own
books
their own
music
their own
work.

sometimes i think
i see
them- say
a certain old
man
sitting on a
certain bench
in a certain
way

or
a quick face
going the other
way
in a passing
automobile

or
there’s a certain motion
of the hands
of a bag-boy or a bag-
girl
while packing
supermarket
groceries.

sometimes
it is even somebody
you have been
living with
for some
time-
you will notice
a
lightning quick
glance
never seen
from them
before.

sometimes
you will only note
their
existence
suddenly
in
vivid
recall
some months
some years
after they are
gone.

i remember
such a
one-
he was about
20 years old
drunk at
10 a.m.
staring into
a cracked
new orleans
mirror

face dreaming
against the
walls of
the world

where
did i
go?

-charles bukowski.

2007-02-14T07:34:00.000-06:00

THE HUSK OF YOUR VOICE

By David Whyte

The husk of your voice
is like a chrysalis
grown round something
hidden,
waiting to be born
and waiting for you
to stop.

What is inside
wants to know itself fully
before it is born.
That's why it refuses
to reveal itself,
sure as you are
that you need not slip down
that long branch of your body
to the very root
and in the earth of your body
near the damp echo
of everything
you have not touched
reflected in your voice, and the air
suddenly quicken
as if innocent speech
could rise again
from that rich and
impossible soil
composed of your neglected past.
Like sap rising
in the steady tree
of your courageous life.
Your voice opens

and shows
the strong outline
of that tree
against the sky,
where another
shadow
takes flight
startled by your
new cry,

the shadow
of something leaving
to find its own way
in the world.

Something you carried
as a black weight
for many years.
You watch it go

relieved
as if it might return
blessed by a world
which
allows its going,
refusing to be held
and refusing to hold
you again,
free and finally
in its flight
to another's mouth
untroubled by your breath.

2007-02-13T15:36:00.000-06:00

Mount Gabriel

by Peter Dunne

The sheep keep their horns up here,
Unlikely cattle graze the crevices.
Every cloud is a mouth in the rock,
Ravening caverns crab across the face,
Searching out souls; swallowing a herd
Of black cattle, an acre of stone:
Finding no sustenance, disgorge them.
They reach for heaven, these heights; they speak of hell.
Fire licks at the gates, and they are wax,
Drip feeding the inferno's cold flame.

A stark ascetic place, a dark acidic place,
A bitter, barren place, yet men build fences here.
The ancients scratched the surface for tin,
Mad hermits glowered at valleys of sin,
And they built their fences. Heaven and hell
Played mischief in their hearts
While earth laughed at her captives.

Gabriel grumbles on ascent. Crossing the top of his
Great turtle back he drenches me with
Spluttering guffaws, throws me an incongruous
View. Out of dark lowering, eons of days and nights
Battle and dance on valley and sea. It sucks at my breath
And earth implodes in my breast.
Too much to know, to see, to bear.
I glide down to the valley, landing among
The stone walls and hedges of familiar fields
And my exhilaration is without bounds.

2007-02-13T15:31:00.000-06:00

Yo no soy yo by Juana Ramon Jimenez

Yo no soy yo
Soy el que marcha a mi lado
y a quien no veo
Al que visito algunas veces
y olvido otras
El que me perdona
cuando como golosinas
El que anda en la naturaleza
cuando yo estoy en el interior
El que permanece silencioso
cuando yo hablo
El que permanecera en pie
cuando yo muera

translation #1

I AM NOT I

I am not I.
I am this one
Walking beside me whom I do not see,
Whom at times I manage to visit,
And at other times I forget.
The one who remains silent when I talk,
The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
The one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
The one who will remain standing when I die.

translation #2 by piktor (thank you)

I am not myself.
I am this,
that travels next to me without notice;
whom I visit sometimes,
and, sometimes, I forget.
Whom, quietly, silences when I speak,
who grants blithe pardon, while I hate,
that wanders into where I'm not,
who will still stand when I die.

2007-02-13T12:21:00.000-06:00

spider haiku

struggling spider's
fine weave, defies elements
to watch, happiness.

2007-02-10T00:48:00.000-06:00

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~ by Marianne Williamson

2007-02-08T15:09:00.000-06:00

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.